Pochettino opens up about his first six years in England

We almost didn't get Mauricio Pochettino in the Premier League. One English lesson was all it took for him to reject the chance to move to England outright.

Last week, sitting on a sofa with his assistant Jesus Perez at Totteham's Enfield training ground, he was reflecting on his six-year anniversary of managing in England, and laughing. Indeed there is a lot of laughter.

Of that English lesson, which Pochettino took in Barcelona in 2012, he said: 'I was 40 years old and a few days before I decided to come here, I said: "OK, I want to start to learn English." After my first lesson, I said: "It's impossible!" English was like Chinese would be for me now. I said: "I'm going to stop. A disaster!"

Perez, though, who was fluent and had a vested interest in getting to England, was persuasive, as was Pochettino's wife Karina. 'When they said: "We need to go", I said: "Come on! No way!" Six years after, look where we are.'

He didn't add the moniker now applied to him - most-wanted manager in world football - but for the man who came to Southampton having left Espanyol in a relegation battle, life has changed somewhat, with both Real Madrid and Manchester United weighing up their offers for him, and Tottenham's Daniel Levy jealously guarding him and enthusing him about the project he is building at Spurs, more of which later.

It turns out he does still need Perez for some linguistic difficulties. Such as the time he told Sean Dyche to 'F*** off!' Merely a cultural misunderstanding, of course.

'It was very funny a few years ago with Sean on the touchline,' says Pochettino. He compares the English expletives to 'hijo de puta', which means son of a whore, an expression so common in Latin countries it has almost lost capacity to offend.

'If you said in Spanish: "hijo de puta", it doesn't mean "F*** off!" It's different. Because Sean Dyche was on the touchline saying "F***ing this, f***ing that", in one moment I turned to him and said: "Hey, Sean: F*** off! F*** off, Sean!"

Perez and the English staff on his bench were aghast. 'They said: "Mauricio! F*** off? No!" So I said: "Sorry Sean, I apologise." I didn't want to disrespect him, I thought I was saying "Shut up". If we say hijo de puta, it doesn't have the same impact as an English person saying it.'

It is worth recalling just how much hostility there was to Pochettino when he arrived. He played out a 0-0 draw against David Moyes' Everton on January 21, 2013, with the Southampton fans hailing his predecessor with chants of: 'There's only one Nigel Adkins.'

Adkins was seemingly in the diminishing vanguard of young English coaches, having taken Southampton from League One to the Premier League. Pochettino was an outsider and an unheralded one at that, unlike Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, and so not trusted. Yet it is Pochettino who has arguably done more for English football than any other Premier League coach in the past six years.

It is hard to believe that Harry Kane and Dele Alli would be at the level they are now without him. When Harry Winks made his England debut in 2017, 15 of the last 30 England debutants had been coached by Pochettino. At Spurs he has given 13 academy graduates a debut.

Indeed, in the week in which his mentor Marcelo Bielsa inadvertently opened up a debate as to whether it was foreign coaches who brought detailed analysis and tactical dynamism to England, Pochettino points to an even older school as inspiration: Sir Alex Ferguson. The secret, Pochettino believes, in creating a flourishing environment for young players is one he learned from Ferguson.

'It's spending time with them,' says Pochettino. 'You can spend time analysing your opponents, or you can spend time giving your time to these young people, the players in your squad, to try to understand how they think, how they live, what they need.

'Then, if you really know these people, you can provide better tools to improve and be better and to help in their development. Of course, it's all part of football, it's all part of the game.

'Of course the opponent is important, of course your methods are important, your philosophy and your idea. But if you know the person beneath the shirt, you are going to be successful. You are going to help the dressing room and the future. If not, for sure it is going to be difficult. You are going to be successful in a short period, but in the medium and long term you are going to fail.

'I have 30, 40 people, maybe 20 analysts, who are working and finding information about our opponents, from the Spanish league, from the Italian league, from the Argentine league. We have every single detail and we have all the information.

'But for me the key point — as it was for Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United — is the man management. At the end, the human skills are going to be the most important. Technology, machines, data: they don't feel anything. They are like the furniture. We are talking about the real human. We need to breathe, we need to feel the love, we need emotion. Football is a contest of emotion. If we forget that, we are going to kill the game.'

It is surely a point that won't be lost on Manchester United, as they consider their next move. The way he talks about England, it is hard to see him leaving the Premier League any time soon.

Asked to assess himself over the past six years he is reluctant, but eventually relents. 'I think a massive improvement. I learn a lot. I hope to learn more. I think we discover a different culture, a different country, your culture.

'I think personal and professionally it has been a massive improvement. I think I am better person — that is the most important — and of course better professional because I have here all the tools to ensure that passion that is football and of course for me it is the best league in the world and the best facilities to work and the best tools for you to develop yourself.'

As for his commitment to the next six years of Tottenham's project, the move to the new ground, the capacity to build a team with financial restrictions, he seems enthused, without wholly committing himself.

For example, he reminds his listeners that when he arrived at Spurs he was told that the challenge was to make the Champions League, to attract the best players.

'That was the theory,' he says. 'But it wasn't the practice. It killed the theory, that you are in the top four you are going to attract players. In football, you need money to attract good players. You can build the best house in the world but if you don't have money to pay you can't put the best security, the best gardeners, you know. You need money too not just facilities.'

It's hard not to take this as a reference to Tottenham's new stadium, which will doubtless be one of the best in the world, but asked whether he could envisage winning the Premier League or the Champions League with Spurs, he seems engaged in the challenge and the need to keep improving.

'Football is so dynamic. Our reality changes in football,' said Pochettino. 'We need to design a strategy to be ahead of the different clubs. Of course always you need money because it's going to help you, but football is about chapters, periods, projects.'

Tottenham fans can only hope that long-term future includes the unheralded man who arrived to these shores six years ago.